7 Creepy Things That Have Happened On Friday The 13th

As Michael Scott once said on The Office, "I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious." That pretty much sums up my attitude toward Friday the 13th — I'm not going to hide inside my house all day, but if anything bad happens, I will be side-eyeing the calendar. We're lucky enough to have the 13th fall on a Friday twice this year. The first occurrence was in January, and the second is this week. You may be asking yourself whether creepy things actually happen on Friday the 13th. Experts say there's no evidence the day itself is unlucky, so you should probably just live life as you normally would. But, if you believe some of the most common superstitions, you'll likely avoid black cats, turn down anyone who asks you on a date and only open an umbrella outdoors. It can't hurt, right? If you're a bit of a rebel, you could also laugh in the face of fear and purposely break mirrors, step on sidewalk cracks and pull out gray hairs. Even though statistics aren't on the side of the superstitious, some pretty creepy things have gone down on Friday the 13th. Call it coincidence, but it's been a pretty grim day historically. You may want to grab a rabbit's foot as you read on.

A Teen Boy Is Struck By Lightning

LUIS ROBAYO/AFP/Getty Images

Being struck by lightning isn't very likely to happen to you. There's a 1 in 3,000 chance you'll get struck. Compare that to your odds of getting in a car crash: The average person will get in a wreck three or four times during their lifetime. But one 13-year-old boy got pretty unlucky on Aug. 13, 2010, when he was struck by lightning at a festival. Get this: The lightning struck at 1:13 p.m., or 13:13 on a 24-hour clock. Spooky.

The U.S. Stock Market Crashes

BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/Getty Images

Exactly 17 years after both of those tragic plane crashes, the U.S. stock market hit an unexpected slump. The date was Oct. 13, 1989, and both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones dropped dramatically in value. It's referred to as a mini-crash, and This was an anomaly, though: Friday the 13th is actually historically a good day for stock trading.

A Plane Crash Leaves 174 People Dead

ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images

The most famous Friday the 13th plane crash is arguably the Andes mountains disaster. On Oct. 13, 1972, a plane transporting an Uruguayan rugby team crashed in Chile, and survivors were forced to cannibalize their dead friends in order to live. They weren't discovered by rescuers for 72 days.

Incredibly, the Andes tragedy wasn't the worst aviation accident that day. Another awful crash happened thousands of miles away on that Oct. 13: A Russian flight turned tragic once the plane encountered complications, and investigators still don't know what happened. Everyone on board was killed.